


run and hide

by laurenswriting



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, First Meeting, Flowers, Fluff, Light Angst, Mostly Fluff, Once Upon A Time, Pre-Femslash, Pre-Relationship, Secret Admirer, a fairly abrupt ending but not really, a lack of capitalization, anonymous gifts, bay window, flower child!maya, gardener!maya, i cry, i probably talked about too many flowers but whatever, lauren throws grammar to the wind, like they don't get names until they meet so pronouns until then, may be confusing idk, maya loves riley so much, riley thinks maya is the most beautiful thing in the world, so canon basically, use of pronouns, v light angst actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 22:24:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8303410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurenswriting/pseuds/laurenswriting
Summary: these flowers never came with a note, only a simple tag reading “for riley.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally a part of an ask game that i liked to much to leave alone lol [ (read here) ](http://rileysrobot.tumblr.com/post/151550259776/111633)  
> title taken from sabrina carpenter's BEAUTIFUL song "run and hide"

once upon a time there was a blonde and a brunette, and the blonde loved the brunette very much. every day, she would pick the prettiest flower in her garden and leave it on the other girl’s window sill as a symbol of her love, but the beauty of the petals could never compare to the radiance of the girl who held them.

one day, the flowers stopped appearing. no more roses, no more carnations, no more marigolds. a week went by and the girl began to worry. these flowers never came with a note, only a simple tag reading “ _for riley_.” the brunette had no way of knowing who was visiting her window each night. in their absence, anything could have happened to her admirer, if they even were an admirer at all. no one in town had ever shown the brunette much interest prior to the flowers, and she had begun to crave the shiver of want that ran down her spine when she spotted her newest gift every morning. the girl had even taken to leaving her bay window open at night to make it easier for her admirer to drop off their tokens of appreciation. (no, it was a silent invitation for them to **stay**.) at first, the girl had assumed it was a joke, a mistake, but then she continued to receive these bits of beauty. she wanted to meet the face behind the flowers, the heart behind the petals.

she wanted to meet the one who wanted her.

(it may just have been the girl projecting her desires onto her mystery girl, but it gave the chocolate-haired beauty hope.)

she held onto every single flower the blonde gave her, keeping them in an intricate vase on her bedside table. she ran her fingers over the bouquet’s petals every morning when she left to go to school and ran to care for them as soon as she returned home. in the week without the other girl’s flowers, she felt herself slipping back into her fear that the gifts were in fact a joke, that someone thought they could string along her heart and play her like a violin.

 _no,_ she thought, looking at the overflowing vase one last time before going to sleep. _i won’t let them do this. tomorrow, i find out who it is._

the next day, the brunette skipped school, choosing instead to roam the town in search of the garden from which her flowers came. she combed over every park, every stream, every patch of grass she could find. she even peeked past people’s fences and into their backyards, but it was a waste. it seemed that her admirer’s garden didn’t exist. she doubted the flowers on her bedside table were even real. half of her expected them to be gone by the time she returned home.

giving up, she began to trudge back to her family’s tiny cottage, thick brown hair hiding her face and her matching dark eyes burning with unshed tears. she didn’t dare look up, for she feared that her chance at happiness had slipped through her fingers and she could feel herself splitting apart at the seams. it was only a matter of time before the dam burst.

not paying attention to where she was going, the girl took a wrong turn and started down a barely worn path through the woods. she was on autopilot, one foot mindlessly moving in front of the other. by the time she realized she was not on the road home, she was too deep into the forest to call for help. no one was there to hear her desperate cries for aid. she had no idea where she was, and the only hope she had was to continue down the dirt road.

as she stumbled along, the tears burst free, and she sobbed her way past every cluster of trees. the girl ran through the woods, her feet catching on broken branches and stones but she pushed on, collapsing against a tree stump when the fire inside was burning too much to bear. through her choked sobs, she finally lifted her head and found that she was just a few yards away from a clearing of some sort. curious, she climbed over tree trunks and bushes to reach the patch of clear sunlight ahead of her. as she reached the edge of the clearing, the girl spotted a house even smaller than hers just past the trees. she ran to it, desperate for the help that would bring her back to her family, to her cottage, to her flowers. she wanted to get out of this forest and leave behind the mess of the day.

as she came closer however, she heard the cries of another, muffled by distance. they seemed to be coming from the other side of the house, the one facing the opposite side of the clearing. the house was as yellow as the brightest sunflower, and its sides were covered in curls of ivy. with every step the girl took around the house, the cries became louder and louder and the ivy became thicker and thicker until she was face to face with the most beautiful garden she had ever seen. every shade of the rainbow lived in its flowers, vibrant bursts of color combining with light and earthy perfumes to create what she thought of as heaven. her senses were assaulted by the wonder in front of her. instinctively, the girl reached out her fingers to touch the soft and delicate petals. suddenly, a rough cry ripped through the air, sparking the girl’s desire to find its source.

she crept through the garden, ducking under hanging plants and pushing past branches until she reached what seemed to be the heart of the garden. flowers of every hue were spread out in all directions, towering over her and weaving under her feet. in the center of it all was a girl crouched on the ground, sobbing into her dirt-caked hands and clutching a crumpled sheet of paper. she was sat next to a pile of flowers of every size and shape, their long stems intertwined and just waiting to be tied together in a bouquet.  

the girl gasped.

she saw her daisies. she saw her peonies, her lilies, her hydrangeas, her orchids. every single flower she had ever received was lying right in front of her, though somehow each one was more beautiful than the last.

the girl hesitated before stepping forward, slowly inching closer to the still-sobbing girl. “are those for me?” she whispered, just a few feet from the blonde now. her head whipped up, falling backwards with the force of her surprise. the brunette’s breath caught in her chest at the sight of her: her eyes were the richest sapphire the girl had ever seen, her hair the finest gold. her cheekbones sat high, sharp yet soft, and her pink pink lips parted ever so slightly as she stared at the girl before her.

“how did you-”

“i was walking in the woods.” she gave a short nod, as if she expected this one day. how could she, though, living this far out into the forest? she was hidden for a reason, that much was clear, but the brunette couldn’t bring herself to care.

“is it you, then?” she asked, creeping closer, eyes full of hope. “are you my flower girl?”

“i-i wanted to tell you,” she began, scrambling up to face her, letting the sheet of paper flutter to the ground. “but i was never ready. i had it all planned out, down to the very last petal, but then nothing was good enough for you. none of it.” she was talking quickly now, spitting her words and shaking with nerves. “and this had to be perfect for you, because it’s _you_ and you deserve the world and i wasn’t even sure if you’d even _like me_ but somehow i-”

“they _are_ perfect, though.” she cut the other girl off, reaching down to pick up a light pink tulip. “they’re always perfect. i’ve missed them.” she paused, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth and searching out the blonde’s hand, tangling her fingers with her own. “i’ve missed _you_.”

she smiled, and the world stopped.

“what’s your name?” the dark-haired girl asked. their feet shuffled closer together, shortening the space between them.

“maya. maya hart.” the blonde’s voice was barely above a whisper, as if she was afraid of shattering the world they had created for themselves.

“maya hart,” the brunette repeated softly, feeling the way the words fell off her tongue so easily, so gracefully. “i love it.” she bit her lip, meeting maya’s clear blue eyes. “i’m-“

“riley. i know,” maya interjected, a warm blush flooding her cheeks. riley’s face colored as well, mind flashing back to the countless tags she had piled up in her room, all reading her name in their flowing script. her name had never been as beautiful as it was when maya said it. “riley, can i ask you something?”

“anything.”

“what were you expecting? from the flowers?” riley could feel maya’s fingers trembling in her own despite the near-vice grip maya had on her.

“not _you_. never you,” she whispered. maya deflated in front of her, taking a step back out of riley’s space. the brunette protested with a soft huff, pulling maya closer and reaching her free hand up to lift maya’s chin. their eyes met, dark chocolate and ocean blue, a match made by the gods. “i never expected anyone as beautiful as you.”

maya gasped, her entire face lighting up as she pushed riley’s hand out of the way and pressed her lips to the other girl’s cheek. it was brief, just a peck, but the feeling it gave both girls lingered. to riley, it felt like coming home, like the stars had aligned simply so that this moment could exist and her life could change forever. for maya, it was the culmination of so many weeks and months of _want_ and _please_ and _one day_ ; the girl she had admired and adored for so long was finally real, finally in front of her and so so open with her heart.

riley leaned forward, lightly resting her forehead on the shorter girl’s. “could i maybe see the rest of the garden?” she breathed, unable to keep the smile from spreading across her face at maya’s closeness. she darted forward, covering maya’s soft pink lips with her own for just a moment, trying to pour all of the hope she had felt over the past weeks into this simple touch.

“but of course, my lady,” maya replied with a curtsy after they broke apart. riley’s melodic giggle floated through the air as maya pulled on their entwined hands, bringing riley deeper into her garden, showing her how much she loved her with every sunflower, every daffodil, every iris.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first time really writing rilaya so i hope this was okay!!!!! thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed ♥♥  
> feel free to send me a request at[ my tumblr ](https://rileysrobot.tumblr.com)


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